Tuesday, December 31, 2013

To Start the New Year Right with Mary



Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
Luke 2:16-21
  
“And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart (Luk 2:19)”

How do I start my New Year right? As a religious brother, my answer is straightforward. I attended the first mass of the day and prayed the breviary afterward. I believe that I have put my feet on the correct path. Yet, remarkably, none of these liturgical activities are directly related to the New Year! In the first day of the year, the Church is celebrating the solemnity of Mary, the Mary of God and not New Year itself! But why? Before we reflect on an indirect relation between New Year and this great festivity of the Church, let us first zero in on the first ever Marian dogma ever defined.
For non-Catholics, to call Mary as the mother of God is pretty idolatrous. If God has a mother, Mary must be the highest goddess of all! The Catholics must fall back to polytheism as they worship Mary like the ancient Greeks offered incense to Hera, the supreme goddess of Olympus. But, for the well-informed Catholics, the title ‘Mother of God’ does not point to the divinity of Mary, and in fact, we never consider Mary as another supreme being. She is human just every one of us, but she is so blessed because the Word was made flesh through her (Luk 1:31). Thus, in simple logic, we may say that Mary is the mother of Jesus and Jesus is God, therefore, Mary is the Mothe r of God.  
But, why the council of Ephesus (in present-day Turkey) in 431 had to make a bold move to define it as dogma? Was it enough to put it as an ordinary teaching of the Church as to avoid misunderstanding? Delving into to the history and theological controversies of the time, the council fathers found a need to defend both the divinity as well as the humanity of Jesus as many heretics considered humanity of Jesus as bogus. But, if Jesus were not God, how could He save and if Jesus were not fully human, how could He bear our sins? Thus, our forefathers taught that Jesus is truly God because he is coming from the Father, and truly human, because He was truly born of Mary. To believe in this dogma is a matter of salvation!
I beg your indulgence if your nose start bleeding. Anyway, let us proceed with the New Year stuffs. Why do we have to celebrate Marian festivity on the start of the year? Why don’t we just create a New Year liturgical event and put this solemnity in some other date? The first reason is that we need to respect the history that our forefathers had placed this celebration in January 1. The second reason is that the Church wants to remind us to start the New Year right! To be right and true, we are called to be like Mary, to be the bearer of God in our lives throughout the year, day in and day out. We give birth to Christ every time we share our faith, every time we opt to be honest, and every time we act to love difficult persons we encounter. We bring Jesus every moment we do not lose hope on each other, every moment we defend the primacy of life, and every moment we fight against injustice and violence.  
To start our year right, why don’t we make this New Year resolution: to be the bearer of God!
Happy New Year and Happy Feastday…

Br. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP

No comments:

Post a Comment